I sorta hated this. I mean, nicely filmed, and it's maybe Van Heflin's best role but that just makes everyone else's scenery chewing so much worse. I thought I had seen over the top Palance before but not till I had seen this. Ann-Margret overreacts to everything, and I've never entirely bought Alain Delon as human (he's always Acting to me) but he's especially nonsensical here.
It super doesn't help that they will not stop talking in "Italian" and banging on about being from or going back to Trieste, while Palance is obviously an American of Ukranian descent and Delon is /obviously/ French without the slightest attempt to conceal it. Oh, yeah, Palance and Delon are brothers? No, I do not think so.
But that's okay because the story is somewhat nonsensical and wastes lots of time to rush through the actual interesting and inevitable bits. The criminal gang is purportedly competent, as this is a Big Heist and their One Last Job but make mistakes (fatal, huge mistakes) all over, and are beyond unprofessional to murderously greedy then also so stupid as to not figure the random murder of one member of the gang might mean I'm next. Nope, drive on. Oh, and what does one do with platinum wire
The cops are the putative moral center of the show, even a nice scene in Van Heflin's home where he basically chooses justice over revenge or even the most letter-of-the-law doing his job, for the greater good, but then they all but kidnap Ann-Margaret, let a small child run (twice!) into an armed criminal scene, after spending no effort at all to get her un-kidnapped. But at least at the end I wanted to throw the TV out the window.
What in the absolute hell was the justification for shooting Eddie (Delon) at the end? I guess he was supposed to be holding the gun but I didn't notice it in the action, and he's clearly wounded, not pointing it at people, and we further have no particular idea who the partner IS or why he'd be especially out to get Eddie, generally would be too gun happy, etc.
In front of a crowd in broad daylight on Fisherman's Wharf in city of SF, I think even in the 60s that cop might be in trouble. Maybe not going to prison for murder but surely he gets "promoted" to the file room for being a massive screwup.
It was that stupid.
It super doesn't help that they will not stop talking in "Italian" and banging on about being from or going back to Trieste, while Palance is obviously an American of Ukranian descent and Delon is /obviously/ French without the slightest attempt to conceal it. Oh, yeah, Palance and Delon are brothers? No, I do not think so.
But that's okay because the story is somewhat nonsensical and wastes lots of time to rush through the actual interesting and inevitable bits. The criminal gang is purportedly competent, as this is a Big Heist and their One Last Job but make mistakes (fatal, huge mistakes) all over, and are beyond unprofessional to murderously greedy then also so stupid as to not figure the random murder of one member of the gang might mean I'm next. Nope, drive on. Oh, and what does one do with platinum wire
The cops are the putative moral center of the show, even a nice scene in Van Heflin's home where he basically chooses justice over revenge or even the most letter-of-the-law doing his job, for the greater good, but then they all but kidnap Ann-Margaret, let a small child run (twice!) into an armed criminal scene, after spending no effort at all to get her un-kidnapped. But at least at the end I wanted to throw the TV out the window.
What in the absolute hell was the justification for shooting Eddie (Delon) at the end? I guess he was supposed to be holding the gun but I didn't notice it in the action, and he's clearly wounded, not pointing it at people, and we further have no particular idea who the partner IS or why he'd be especially out to get Eddie, generally would be too gun happy, etc.
In front of a crowd in broad daylight on Fisherman's Wharf in city of SF, I think even in the 60s that cop might be in trouble. Maybe not going to prison for murder but surely he gets "promoted" to the file room for being a massive screwup.
It was that stupid.